Cloé's Requiem is an RPG Maker horror adventure game released in October 2013 by Nubarin and Nanashi no Chiyo of the group Buriki Clock, the same people who made Fantasy Maiden's Odd Hideout. It follows the experiences of a twelve-year-old boy named Michel D'Alembert, a violinist who is extremely talented, but hates training and is very lazy. One day, he runs away from his family and ends up in a strange mansion. There, he meets a young girl named Cloé, who tells him that she has a curse, and tasks him with repelling it.
Cloé's Requiem has disturbing themes such as murder, incest and sexual abuse.
An English-translated version can be obtained here
There's a spin-off called Cloe no Requiem: Con Amore. It's about Cloe and Michel's respective cats and their actions to stop Cloe's curse. There's also the light novels "Cloe no Requiem: Infinito" and "Cloe no Requiem: Infinito Andante".
In June 20 2023, an official remake of the game called Chloé’s Requiem -encore- was released on Steam, which includes both the main story and the "Con Amore'' side mode.
Cloé's Requiem contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents:
- Cloé's father, Alain, regularly abused her (implied to be sexually). Also, when her mother found out, she started neglecting Cloé.
- Michel's father neglected Pierre and forced Michel to perform on concerts in order to get some money for the family.
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Alain's vengeful spirit.
- Alone with the Psycho: Whenever Cloé is left alone with her abusive father Alain.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Michel acts as an Aloof Big Brother in front of Pierre, but when the latter snaps in front of him, Michel is so disoriented that he starts crying. Pierre himself is distraught by Michel's disappearance, as shown in the True Ending.
- Big Bad: Cloé's curse is the thing keeping her trapped in the mansion, and Michel must destroy the curse to free her. It is later revealed that Alain Ardennes, Cloé's abusive father, became the curse after she killed him in self defense.
- Character Portrait: Full-body pixel portraits stand next to dialogue boxes. Their facial expressions can change to reflect whatever they're saying.
- Curse: Two of them, who follow the main characters around. Cloé killed her abusive father in self-defense, who becomes a vengeful spirit and curses her, forcing her to become a ruthless monster. Also, Michel accidentally killed her very obsessive maid Charlotte, who curses him.
- Con Amore reveals Charlotte isn't as crazy as Michel made her out to be. What cursed him were his own guilt and negative feelings after accidentally killing Charlotte.
- Dead All Along: Con Amore reveals Blanc and Noir have been dead for quite a while and the cats Michel saw were just ghosts. In truth Blanc was killed by the cursed Cloé while Noir was killed by Alain during one of his fits of rage.
- Downer Ending: Most of the endings involve either Cloé eventually dying from her curse or Michel being killed by her.
- Foreshadowing: On a bookshelf in the first room to open on the first floor, a book that can be read talks about a famous performer who is believed to abuse his wife and daughter. This is none other than Cloé's father, Alain Ardennes.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Cloé and Michel met a few months before the events of the game during a concert, when he saved her from her father's abuse by asking her father if they could practice a bit more (to which he agreed and left).
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Pierre practices on the piano hard every day, but he is never acknowledged, in favor of his big brother.
- Horrible Judge of Character: In Con Amore, Noir assumes that because the D'Alembert family treated her well, all humans would be friendly to her. This leads to her death when she tries to approach Alain.
- I Wished You Were Dead: When Pierre snaps in front of his big brother, he says this almost word for word.
- Life Meter: In the form of your sanity bar, which causes a Non-Standard Game Over if depleted.
- Light Is Good: After you uncover all of the secrets on one of the floors, the lights turn back on.
- Multiple Endings:
- Bad Ending 1: If Michel decides not to attack Cloé with the knife and hugs her instead, she stabs him. Michel accepts his death and says he will never leave her. Cloé briefly wakes up from her cursed-induced insanity and realizes what she just did.
- Bad Ending 2: If Michel decides not to attack Cloé and pushes her away, she faints. Michel breaks down, remembering the time he killed Charlotte and lamenting he hurt someone once again. As he says this, Cloé wakes up from her stupor and kills Michel.
- Normal Ending: If Michel attacks Cloé, she dies. Michel mourns her and decides that he needs to stops his own curse once and for all. He will accept the consequences of his actions and return home. Before he leaves, he plays on the piano one last time.
- Ghost Ending: If Michel unlocks Cloé's astral projection and doesn't survive his encounter with Alain, he becomes a spirit in the mansion together with Cloé. The two then play the piano together.
- True Ending: If Michel has the protective charm, decides not to attack Cloé and hugs her instead, Cloé is freed from her curse, giving Michel the strength to resolve his own curse. Unfortunately, Cloé still dies (in his arms, no less), and Michel has accidentally killed Charlotte and maimed his father and maid, meaning there's little chance he'll ever get to have the normal life he wanted. He nonetheless decides that he will go back home and face the consequences of his actions after he finishes dedicating Cloé's requiem on his violin.
- Non-Specifically Foreign: Judging by the names and surnames, we can hypothesize that the characters are French.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Michel realizes that Cloé is just like him, because their fathers treated them coldly, as if they were objects.
- Parental Incest: Cloé's father frequently calls her to his room and rapes her roughly enough to draw blood. To make things worse, her mother not only doesn't care about her, but feels jealous over the sexual attention he shows towards her and hates her as a result.
- Third-Person Person: Cloé, to emphasize her childish and naive nature.
- Revenge: The main theme of the game.
- The Reveal: The Cloé we have seen in the game is an astral projection of the real Cloé, who is cursed by her abusive deceased father and is nothing but a shadow of her former self. Michel is cursed as well, by Charlotte, the young maid he accidentally killed.
- Unreliable Narrator: Con Amore reveals that Charlotte isn't as obsessive and unhinged as Michael believes her to be, it's just that she's very awkward when talking to him. What's more, the Charlotte that cursed Michel is a projection of his own guilt. The real Charlotte is actually horrified to see him suffering so much because of her.
- Spell My Name With An S: According to
Word of God, the game is romanized as Chloe's Requiem, but in the translation it appears as Cloé instead, possibly to go with the French motif of the game. - Soul Jar: Alain's is his favorite piano. Once Michel destroys it, Alain dies along with it.
